Adaptation
by dokun
Summary: Denial would be more comfortable. KandaAllen, Rabi. 2nd person narration.


Pairing: Kanda/Allen  
Notes/Warnings: You can tell I had fun with my research. Anything I imply about Kanda's background is the result of too much fun with encyclopedias. 2nd person POV.

* * *

At some point while traveling between Corsica and Bern, you realize you are in love with him. 

You can't pinpoint the exact moment when your dislike becomes irritation, becomes habit, becomes denial, but you can't mistake the emotion; when it comes it comes, not like the surging waters of a flash flood, but like trickles of water seeping in through the cracks of a leaky boat. By the time you've noticed the leaks, your boots are sopping and water is rising quickly.

You notice most things just long enough to dismiss them as worthless; this is not something you can dismiss so easily. The initial denial doesn't last long; you've never tolerated comfortable delusions for yourself or for others. Self-delusion is the refuge of the masses, a luxury you cannot allow for yourself when you have a war to fight and an oath to fulfill.

You accept your uneasy revelation with anything but good grace.

It puts you into such a foul mood you thoroughly terrorize fourteen finders, thoroughly antagonize Mari, and even General Theodore, normally so placid, pauses his pencil on his evolving sketch of a desert vista, and snaps at you. You briefly feel a mean sense of accomplishment at this until you remember why you were angry in the first place, and your ill humor returns.

It gets worse when you return to headquarters and your subconscious revolts. The dreams are the worst. You wake up, aching, from dreams that escape you in the morning light. You remember only trace elements, coarse, soft hair, like the pelt of your mother's Chin, smooth muscle, cheerful laughter, and an intense blue, like the sky at high noon on a Kyoto midsummer day. And woven throughout, a feeling of contentment you haven't experienced since you were small.

It is that feeling that finally breaks you.

You go on mission after mission, because few are as competent as you, and because, by now, you desperately want to drive those wide blue eyes out of your mind. They haunt you, hound your waking moments, dredging up memories you would rather stayed buried, and every blue-eyed train attendant, innkeeper, and Finder seems like a personal affront. You only work harder.

It doesn't work and eventually, despite vociferous complaints, or perhaps in spite of them, you can't always tell with Komui, you are called back to headquarters. Your temper worsens, and now, when you stalk through the halls, scores of Finders give way, like waves before the hull of a ship. It become so unpleasant Komui throws up his hands and assigns you to work with _him_, because no one else possesses quite the same combination of stupidity and obliviousness in equal measures. Or so Komui implies. You briefly wonder if he knows, but Komui keeps his own council, and despite his puerile behavior, few people can read him when he doesn't allow it. At any rate, he doesn't seem inclined to mention it.

The brat is in no way intimidated by or wary of your presence. You and most of your insults go right over his head, other than those about his height, and Allen's comfortableness with his body—likely hard-won, you acknowledge grudgingly—prevent those digs from provoking a satisfactorily irritated response. There is only so much vitriol you can muster against such an oblivious target and a tenuous peace develops.

On one of his rare visits to headquarters, it takes Rabi all of ten minutes to discover something that took you over a year to realize. Being Rabi, he immediately breaks out laughing, bending over and clutching his stomach, wheezing from the lack of air. You attempt to behead him preemptively, growling insults and invective, but you narrowly miss his neck when he dodges, not entirely accidentally. There are only so many people you deign to converse with and even fewer you might (however grudgingly) call 'friend'. You suspect, in this case, it's also a matter of distance breeding tolerance.

Although, later, when Rabi, smiling slyly and shooting little looks at you, decides it's "practically a _ crime_" Allen has never kissed anyone, your fingers start twitching, whether it's out of the desire to wrap them around Mugen's hilt or Rabi's neck, you don't know, but you settle down quickly. When Rabi fails to get a rise out of you, he laughs and, appointing himself as the instructor, tilts Allen back and cuts off his confused yelp by leaning in and sliding his lips over Allen's. When you see Allen's face, flushed and dazed and wondering, you finger Mugen's hilt and think about reconsidering your definition of 'tolerance'. When Rabi suggests you take over Allen's tutelage, you go for the hilt.

Allen's "I wouldn't mind" startles you into dropping your sword, a mistake you haven't made since your father gave you your first real training sword, and the weight—"just like human lives," said your father, somberly—startled you. Allen claps his hand over his mouth, eyes wide and anxious. You stare at him and all you can think is how you always tell him he should think before he opens his mouth to say or promise something stupidly reckless and you can tell by the expression on his face, he's also remembering that.

Allen meets your eyes without flinching, although the tips of his ears redden, and you don't need Rabi's warning look to know you should step carefully. This could change everything, but hadn't the change had already begun in a long-dead town on the Mediterranean Sea?

You remember interrupted dreams and the smell of fresh-turned earth; you've always found strength and bravery more attractive than they had any right to be. The brat, no, Allen—he's been Allen for weeks—has both in spades and you could probably break him of the stupidity. You wonder why you're thinking so hard about a decision you've already made, and you step forward and slam your mouth against Allen's, hard and possessive. You curve a proprietary hand around Allen's hip and twine the other in white hair, tilting your head and deepening the kiss. You feel the urge to make sure that he remembers nothing of his previous kiss because Kanda Yuu does not share well with others.

And then you stop thinking.

End

Omake:

Allen tasted good, spicy and sweet, a bit like citrus and the pudding he had eaten for dessert. Kanda growls, nipping at Allen's mouth and soothing away the small pains with his tongue. Something intruded at the edge of his awareness, but it wasn't as interesting as this warm heat; he ignored it. It continued and, against his will, he began to notice…sharp, rhythmic beats, the sound of flesh meeting flesh, like…clapping?

Kanda snapped his head up and towards the sound and there was Rabi, smiling widely and, yes he was, clapping heartily.

Kanda swooped down and picked up Mugen from the floor, where it had fallen earlier. He gripped the hilt tightly and felt his lips stretch. It was not a nice smile.

Rabi ran.

Allen winced as the sounds of splintering wood and cries of "DIE!" and "Wait a minute, Yuu-cha—Watch where you're swinging that!" faded into the distance. He touched his fingers to his lips, and smiled.

* * *

Note: Why does the omake have a different POV? I liked it better that way. :shrugs:  



End file.
